Silver Singing
by KathrynErin
Summary: Post-War. Katara finds love in the Northern Water Tribe before traveling to the Fire Nation to join the Reconstruction Council. Prequel to Healing Process.


**Silver Singing – KathrynErin**

**Post-War. Katara finds love in the Northern Water Tribe before traveling to the Fire Nation to join the Reconstruction Council. Prequel to Healing Process.  
**

**I don't own Avatar or any of its delicious characters.**

**What's Up: This is the prequel to my Zutara. I hate pairing Katara up with an OC, but it's for the good of the story.**

---

"Do you think my goatee makes me look manly?" Sokka asked her. He was leaning over the edge of their father's ship, staring at his reflection in the unusually calm water.

Katara leaned over next to him and squinted downward. "It makes you look…old."

It was the truth. He was only nineteen, but the facial hair added six or seven years.

Sokka frowned and straightened. "I thought it made me look distinguished."

"Distinguished and old."

"I'm shaving it off." He darted into the cabin of the ship and left her on the deck.

The air was frigid. They would arrive at the Northern Water Tribe in a few hours, at most.

Katara slid her gaze over to the front of the ship, where Aang and Toph sat side by side, talking animatedly. Once in awhile he would lean over and kiss her cheek. Then she'd giggle. Toph never giggled, yet she made the exception for Aang.

Katara felt her face burn despite the stinging cold. She and Aang had a brief relationship six months earlier, if one could call two weeks of awkward silence and strained conversation a relationship. Now they were closer than ever of course, but she couldn't help but feel a tiny pang of jealousy whenever he smiled at Toph like that.

Aang had a plethora of smiles. He had the largest assortment of happy facial expressions Katara had ever seen. He had his wide-mouthed, jovial grins of course, silent smirks, open-mouthed smiles filled with fluttering laughter. There were his half-smiles and forced smiles, big smiles and small smiles, each for a different time, place, and situation. Katara had been on the receiving end of every one of these, but not the one he reserved for Toph.

A loving, small, tender smile. As warm as a kiss. That one was for Toph. It was tragic that she'd never be able to see it.

---

Hakoda and his family were greeted with reverence and celebration at the North Pole. The welcoming party lasted long after the sun had set. Happiness was reflected on every face; the Northern citizens were overjoyed to see that Hakoda and his children had survived the Hundred Year's War. It was fortunate that they didn't notice that Katara and Sokka weren't exactly excited.

Sokka had been moping since they arrived. When she asked what his problem was, he grumbled something about missing Yue and didn't speak for the rest of the night. During the bonfire, half a dozen girls asked him to dance. Every time, he'd shake his head and gaze up at the half moon.

Katara had become increasingly embittered about Toph and Aang. She didn't want the airbender for her own again, but at the same time, she wished he still had an enormous crush on her. It was as if she were a child again: Once, she'd grown tired of a ratty old doll her father had given her and neglected to play with it for a few weeks. Sokka had assumed she didn't want it anymore, and gave it to another girl in the village. Katara threw a fit when she saw the little girl with her doll, even though she didn't have a desire to play with it anymore. She just wanted it in her possession.

Toph was also asked to dance many times by hopeful waterbenders, but she always smiled and shook her head as Aang held onto her protectively.

Nobody asked Katara to dance. She assumed her scowl was scaring them off.

One young man kept looking in her direction, though. She couldn't decide if he looked fascinated or appalled by her; the moon had hidden behind thick clouds and his face was cast in shadow.

He glanced periodically at her for the better half of an hour (did he think he was being sneaky?) before taking a noticeably deep breath. He straightened his parka and sidled over.

"Hey. I'm Tamak."

Katara looked up with what she hoped was an annoyed expression. "I'm not going to dance—"

"You're Lady Katara, daughter of Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe," he spouted. "You're pretty famous." He seemed terribly excited. She felt a smirk tugging at her mouth.

"My reputation precedes me."

"Is it true that you helped Prince Zuko kill his sister? Did you see the Avatar finish the Fire Lord? Can you really bend blood?"

Katara hadn't expected such bold questions. People usually avoided talking about such awful things.

"Um, yes, yes, and yes," she snapped quietly. "Are there any other invasive questions you'd like to ask me?"

Tamak leaned forward and grinned at her. His smile was bigger than Aang's. She hadn't known that was possible.

"Would you like to dance?"

"No."

He didn't seem put off in the least. He sat down in front of her and raised one thick eyebrow. He was a broad-shouldered man in his early twenties.

"Master Pakku said you're the most talented waterbender he's ever seen."

"I'm surprised he admitted that to you."

"I'm not surprised at all. He gushes about you constantly, and uses you to insult our waterbending abilities. It's staggering to actually meet you."

So. He was a waterbender. Figured.

"It's not staggering to meet you. Sorry," Katara replied. Although, he was handsome. And intelligent.

"That's okay," Tamak laughed. "I heard you were decorated by Fire Lord Iroh himself. The Scarlet Star Medal."

"Yeah, he also gave me a box of jasmine tea."

"What?"

"Nothing."

The Scarlet Star was the highest Honor a foreigner could receive from the Fire Nation Military. She wore it on a long, silver chain under her clothes. It was supposed to be pinned to the outside of her parkas and dresses, but she'd rather have it nearer her heart. It was a reminder of her friends in the Fire Nation, and the Reconstruction they still had to complete.

Tamak was grinning at her again. She didn't understand what could possibly be so amusing. He brushed a strand of hair away from his face and spoke again.

"Would you like to dance now?"

"Not particularly, but thanks anyway."

He scratched his goatee in thought (his looked much better than Sokka's) and his eyes took on a mischevious sparkle. "How about we go for a walk?"

"Where?"

"Through the city."

"No, I'd rather stay here."

"Master Pakku told me you were difficult, but I wasn't excpeting you to be boring too."

He struck a chord. Katara's bored expression snapped into an alert frown. "I'm not boring!"

"Really? I wouldn't know. You seem so happy just…sitting…."

He was egging her on. She knew he was egging her on. But she couldn't resist the temptation to fight back.

"I am not boring! I'll even prove it to you!" She stood and dragged Tamak to his feet. She turned on her heel and walked briskly towards a deserted city square. He stumbled after her.

"What are we doing?"

Katara grinned. "Sparring."

---

The match lasted all of two minutes. Two minutes was the amount of time it took her to flip him upside down and freeze him against a nearby building. Two minutes was also the amount of time it took her to develop a crush on him.

His bending was below average. His footwork was terrible and his forms needed work.

But he was funny and witty. Even as he was hanging upside down, he was laughing and telling her she would be in trouble if he ever got down.

"You're not very good," she told him as she bent him off the wall. He chuckled some more and brushed snow off his pants.

"Well," he grunted as he stood, "I hate waterbending."

"Why are you training with Master Pakku?" Katara asked. She was put off by his aversity towards her sacred art.

"My father wishes it." Tamak sat heavily on the bottom step of a set of thick, ice stairs. Resentment was all over his broad face—it didn't suit him. "My dad's in the War Cabinet, the Chief's second-in-command. He wants his only son—that's me, y'know—to follow in his hallowed footsteps."

Tamak spoke bitterly. He stared at the toes of his boots for a long moment before continuing. "I want to be an artist. A sculptor, actually." He looked up at Katara, his eyes sparkling again. "I love to make tiny ice figurines—and I'm great at it, too. Would you like to see one?"

"You carry them around?" Katara asked, half-laughing. Tamak was hastily digging through one of the pockets of his parka. He held a tiny, glimmering thing out to her.

"I work on them if I have time to kill," he said as she reached forward.

It was a crystal rose, made of ice. Its petals were paper thin and carved with thousands of tiny facets to refract the light. She couldn't help but gasp as she held it up to the starlight. Glowing pinpricks shone upon her hands and face.

"Tamak, this is beautiful," Katara whispered. She returned it and he pocketed it.

"The downside is that they melt if you hold them with your bare hands," he shrugged. "Kids don't get it—they like to play with the crystal snow leopards and penguins and ruin all my hard work." He gave a hearty laugh.

"Doesn't your father realize how talented you are?"

"I guess not. Says playing with pretty ice is something a girl should be doing." He grimaced. "I'm too skilled an infantryman. Maybe if I were as terrible with a blade as I am at waterbending, he'd let me stay home and play with 'pretty ice.'"

Katara decided it was high time to change the subject. "Is your father going with Pakku and Chief Arnook to the Reconstruction Council in the Fire Nation?"

"Yeah…how'd you know?"

"Both Water Tribes need a minimum of three representatives present at each of the Reconstruction Assemblies. I assumed since your father wants you to take his position someday—"

"Yeah, I'm going."

"My brother and I are, too."

Tamak looked surprised and a bit awed. "You're both so young. But hey, you _are_ war heroes…"

"Fire Lord Iroh reckons we've proven ourselves to be capable adults," Katara shrugged. "Dad's bringing Bato, just in case."

Tamak laughed at that. She liked that he laughed so often.

---

He laughed often when they spent the next day together, too. And the day after that. And the weeks following that. They started to spend so much time together, Tamak claimed that he was actually getting worse at his waterbending. Pakku didn't seem to mind that his worst pupil wasn't showing up for bending lessons; Katara assumed the old man thought she was teaching him instead.

Katara grew fonder of him each day. He smiled constantly (his face was well-suited to big grins), and laughed at nearly everything. It was refreshing to be around someone so positive who wasn't the Avatar.

Tamak entered her thoughts frequently. He was the last thing she thought of before she went to bed, and the first when she woke up in the morning. His presence was as constant as the moon rising in the sky. They were similar in all their daily rhythms. They found, to their immense delight, that they had the same favorite foods, pastimes, and hobbies. Well, except for waterbending, of course. They even got up in the morning at nearly the same time.

Sokka loved him, too. If he wasn't with Katara, Tamak was having fierce spars with her brother in a nearby city square. They fought on Thursday afternoons, and people usually placed their bets on Tamak.

Hakoda also approved. On the second week of the courtship, her father had warned the young man not to hurt his daughter, and Tamak had just grinned at him and started laughing like he'd just been told a ridiculous joke. Hakoda had been completely accepting ever since.

January came around, and the one-month mark of their courtship was fast approaching. There were rumors flying that Tamak was going to ask Lady Katara to marry him. She kept telling herself not to believe such silly gossip, of course. Things were too good to be true anyway, right? Every time she got close to a boy, they balked.

But Tamak wasn't a boy. He was a young man. And this had been different. She'd been with him for a month now, and her affections for him were getting deeper as every day—nay, every moment with him passed. He couldn't look at her without smiling anymore, and Pakku told he'd even taken up humming happily during his lessons.

Was she ready to be married, if he _did_ happen to ask? She was eighteen. She was of marrying age. Her mother had married at eighteen, and gave birth to Sokka within the first year.

The thought of having a baby at nineteen made Katara shudder. War hero or not, she still wasn't sure she was ready to be a mom quite yet…or even just a wife.


End file.
